ARM expands its position in the graphics industry with acquisition Geomerics, of lighting technology firm for the gaming and entertainment industries.

The acquisition of Geomerics will give ARM the opportunity to create chips able to handle more realistic graphics. Geomerics focuses on global illumination technology -- dubbed Enlighten -- that creates dynamic lighting on PCs, gaming consoles and mobile devices with a lightweight runtime. The firm's 3D technology has been used in games including Medal of Honor: Warfighter, Eve Online and Need for Speed Rivals.

Additionally, the agreement enables Geomerics to accelerate their development in mobile.

"The innovative technologies being developed by Geomerics are already revolutionizing the console gaming experience and are set to rapidly accelerate the transition to photo realistic graphics in mobile," said Pete Hutton, EVP and GM Media Processing Division, ARM. "Empowering Geomerics? portfolio with ARM?s graphics capabilities and market reach will be transformative for the user experiences in future mobile and entertainment devices."

Global illumination is a term used to describe advanced, photorealistic lighting effects in 3D graphics. Typical graphics applications today are limited to simple, direct lighting effects only. With global illumination, effects such as compound reflections, refractions, shadows and other advanced effects are enabled, providing more life-like graphics quality.